


The Library

by crabbybun



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gifting Libraries, Rumbelle - Freeform, Rumbelle War (Once Upon a Time), Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-01
Updated: 2012-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:15:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23882149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crabbybun/pseuds/crabbybun
Summary: A sweet little one-shot about how Mr. Gold first gifted Belle her own library in Storybrooke.
Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold
Kudos: 4





	The Library

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this way back in 2012. This is set inbetween the first two seasons - after the finale of season 1 but before the premiere of season 2.

The blasted books were everywhere.

It wasn’t that he hated books. Oh no. In fact, he loved books almost as much as she did. But he loved books in nice, neat, organized rows on bookshelves. Not strewn about the house in ways that seemed designed to kill him.

There was a book on her side of the couch, and one on the coffee table (one of those big, oversized ones designed to make people who own them look cultured. She had read the whole thing first.) There was at least one cookbook open on the kitchen counter and table, making it hard to put anything down. There was one by her side of the bed, one in the bathroom (he really didn’t get that one) and one in a special, waterproof case out on the porch. By the back door there was a book on birds sitting right next to her binoculars and a book on flowers and gardening right under that one.

She only ever put them where they belonged after she finished reading them (though he was sure that some of those books would never find homes, considering how often she used them.) Which would also be fine if she didn’t keep buying more. She would go to thrift stores and buy them for a dime a piece, coming home with boxes of more and more books. The internet also fueled her addiction (that’s how he looked at it anyway) and boxes more were found on his front stoop on a regular basis. They ended up stacked up in corners, next to chairs, under the bed and on the stairwell.

It was only after the millionth time of stubbing his toe on an unsuspecting stack in his bedroom that he lost it. He picked up the offending books, one after the other, and began throwing them at the wall, cursing their names as he did so.

Belle came running up the stairs at the noise. “What on Earth are you doing?!” she shrieked.

Mr. Gold rounded on her, throwing one last hefty book at the closet door. “These,” he growled, “need to find someplace else to live. I am sick to death of destroying my feet on books that jump out at me from nowhere.”

He looked so serious. But the whole scene was just absurd, and Belle tried to stifle a giggle at her guardian’s look of outrage. “I suppose they are starting to get a bit out of hand,” she said with a smile, “I’ve been meaning to find a new place for them anyway.”

Gold sighed, finding it hard to stay angry when she smiled just like a little angel. “I am going to the shop,” he said, trying to remain calm, “I’ll be gone for quite a few hours. I would appreciate it if these had a new place to live by the time I returned.” Belle covered her mouth to keep from giggling as Gold stalked out of the room, his cane making a serious sounding tick on the floor as he headed out.

By the time he returned, Belle certainly had done something with the books. She had also been out shopping again. Now, instead of stacks of books, there were stacks of huge, clear bins labeled prominently with exactly what kind of books each contained. Gold sighed. It definitely didn’t look any nicer, but at least he should be able to avoid killing himself on them.

After dinner, he kissed her and thanked her for making the effort to pick up her books. But it didn’t last long. He began coming home to the bins dragged out to the middle of a room, the books in it strewn about as she searched for something she needed at right that moment.

He asked her why she never kept them in his library. Her response was that his library was too nice to clutter with her stuff, and since he used that room on a regular basis, he needed to be able to enter it at will, not climbing all around her books. He noticed that she organized hers much differently than he did. Everything of his was on shelves, in alphabetical order by author last name. Hers were organized by genre, and which she wanted to read first. Books that had been read were put in a different pile than ones that hadn’t been. Non-fiction was kept separate from fiction, fiction was organized according to what they were about. How-to and self-help books, anything considered useful in everyday life, were in a completely separate pile from those.

And the books under the bed were where all the ones about mental health went. She knew she wasn’t crazy, but she wondered why everyone had thought she was. She had pondered it over most of the time she was locked in that cell. Now, she devoured every book she could on various mental disorders. It made Gold uneasy. All he wanted to do was forget about all that time she spent locked up there, away from him. All she wanted to do was understand it, since she knew she could never forget it.

After the third straight week of finding her books spilled about, Gold decided he needed to give her a space of her own to keep them. A whole room if he had to. He had a mansion after all, and it was just the two of them. There must be dozens of unused rooms about.

So one day, he sent Belle off on an errand that he was sure would take her at least a few hours. He figured in that time he could find her a room of her own, move all her books into it, and set it up all nice and pretty for her. It would be a nice surprise and he could already see the joyous look on her face and the sparkle in her eye when she came home to her very own library.

But he ran into a few problems. For one, all of the rooms he came across were already filled with his stuff. Particularly, they were filled with curios for his shop. He would try to move things into one of the other rooms, condense the piles, but then remembered why he had to keep them separate in the first place. By the time she came back, he hadn’t done much but moved some things around. Nothing enough to even be noticeable. She was confused when she found him, but he brushed it off, saying that he was searching for a particular item needed at his shop.

He mulled the problem over for another week before another solution dawned on him, sounding so simple he was surprised he hadn’t thought of it before then. His home had both a basement and an attic, two rooms he was sure he didn’t use very often, if at all. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he had gone into the attic, and Belle was always in the basement washing his clothes.

He figured the basement would be his best bet, since she was always down there anyway, but he began to see a problem with that plan almost right away. For one, Belle hated going down there. It reminded her too much of her old cell. She always looked like she was going into battle when she went down there, and she came tearing up the stairs as if someone was chasing her each time. Second, it was rather damp down there. It had never flooded, but he had also never had it furnished so it was susceptible to heat and cold. Which he knew meant that books would not last very long.

However, he really didn’t want to climb that stupid drop down ladder into the attic.

But a couple weeks later, he sent Belle off again and pulled the ceiling cord to the attic entrance. He looked at it with hatred for a few moments before gritting his teeth and ascending the ladder slowly, one rung at a time. When he finally made it into the attic, he let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding in and looked around.

It was perfect. Dusty, but perfect. It was insulated to be used as another room but he never got around to it. There were a few boxes in one corner, but nothing he couldn’t handle. He found out that they were all filled with various holiday decorations he didn’t even remember owning. He wondered how he had managed to accumulate these, as it was a well-known fact that he hated holidays. Slowly but surely, he picked up the boxes, maneuvered them down the (much shakier than he remembered) ladder and put them away in a darkened corner of one of his other rooms, to be forgotten until Belle would discover them a couple years later while cleaning.

He then encountered his next problem. He could move all her boxes up there, true, but he had no place to put them. And he really didn’t just want to leave them up there all boxed up like he didn’t want them or her around. What he needed was shelves. What he was lacking was unused shelves. He growled out in frustration. His plan would have to wait a little longer.

He also had to figure out how to ask for help without people becoming suspicious and telling Belle. He also had to figure out how to ask and have people take him seriously. Not that they wouldn’t exactly, but it was kind of an odd request. So he started with the person he thought might be the least fazed: Sheriff Swan.

Emma looked at the older man a little oddly. “You need me to do what?” she asked.

Gold gritted his teeth a little. “I would appreciate your help in finding some shelves that I can put in my attic,” he repeated, his smile stretching just a little too far to be friendly.

“What do you need shelves in your attic for?” she asked, a shade confused.

“That, Miss Swan,” Gold replied, “isn’t really any of your business. I have a great need for shelves in general. You’ve seen the amount of items I own. I can’t just leave them lying about on the floor you know.”

The sheriff nodded her head. “True,” she said, “Wouldn’t want your precious trinkets to get broken now would we?”

Gold nodded his head slightly. “I have one more favor to ask of you as well.”

Emma raised an eyebrow. “And what do I get for helping you out?” she asked “You don’t ever ask for anything for free.” Gold nearly growled. Damn her and her logic. Damn him and his damn deals!

“Whatever it is that you need, Miss Swan,” he told her, “I will help you out with two favors of your choice, to cash in whenever you please.”

Emma’s eyebrows flew up to her hairline. “Wow Gold,” she said, “This must be really important for you to make that deal.”

“You have no idea,” he replied.

True to her word, Emma found some large, unused shelves and helped him get them up to the attic and set up properly.

“Where’s Belle, and why isn’t she helping you with this?” Emma asked when the final shelf had be placed against the far wall.

Gold pretended not to hear, turning Emma toward the exit saying “Thank you for your help Miss Swan. Have a pleasant day.” She eyed him curiously.

“Oh,” she said as it dawned on her, “Aww, that’s cute Gold. You do have a heart in there somewhere.”

Gold’s polite smile fled his face. “You can leave now,” he said abruptly.

Emma raised her hands in surrender. “I’m leaving, I’m leaving,” she said and called out “She’ll love it Gold, don’t worry.” Gold flushed.

He managed to get all the bins up to the attic before Belle got home, but he had not had the time to put them away. Nor had he managed to get any other furniture up into the attic, and he felt that her library definitely needed a lamp or two, at least one table to put them on, and definitely an armchair so that she could be comfortable in her new library.

But this time Belle had noticed that something was up. “What happened to all my books?” she asked, cornering the former trickster against the kitchen counter as he was making his tea.

“I put them away dearie,” he said, trying not to turn and face her lest his expression give him away, “Don’t worry, they’re safe.”

“But they’re not here,” Belle said.

“Well,” Gold said, turning around and smiling, “they’re still in the house.”

“Where?” Belle asked accusingly. She was obviously on edge, probably imagining her books in ashes in the furnace in the basement.

Gold leaned forward and kissed Belle’s forehead. “Give me two days,” he said, “The next two days, I want you to take as much time as possible on your errands.”

“And in exchange?” Belle asked.

“I will show you where your books are and just how much I love you,” was Gold’s reply.

Belle wrapped her arms around Gold’s thin waist and looked up at him. “I suppose it’s a deal then,” she replied with a smile. Gold kissed Belle’s nose, then her lips, softly and slowly, lingering there just a bit longer than necessary.

Soon after Belle left the next day, just as Gold was trying to figure out how to get the plush red armchair up the rickety ladder, he heard his doorbell ring. Gold frowned and went downstairs to find Emma Swan at his doorstep.

“Can I help you, Miss Swan,” he asked, a tad annoyed.

Emma smiled. “I want to cash in one of those favors,” she said. Gold’s eyes flashed. This is not how he wanted to spend his day. He had only two days to get Belle’s library up and functional and he did not need to be wasting time running useless errands for airheaded sheriffs. But, a deal was a deal.

“Come in,” Gold gritted out. “What’s the favor?” Gold asked once she was inside, getting to the point quickly.

Emma smiled. “Let me help you finish up,” she said brightly, “You’ll never ask for more help, and I know you need it. I was afraid you’d break a hip or something on that ladder.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” was Gold’s pointed reply.

“Listen,” Emma said, “I like Belle too. She’s been through a lot and I know…I can see how you feel about her. I want to help you make this right, and keep it that way. So that’s my first favor. A deal’s a deal.”

Gold stared for a moment. “Well,” he said, “I do have an armchair that doesn’t want to behave.” Emma smiled brightly.

With Emma’s help, the library was finished that night. Emma found a way to organize the room so that it looked usable (she turned out to have quite the eye for interior design) and, while Gold would never admit it, he was quite happy for the help. When Emma left, he sent her off with one of the pieces of jewelry from his collection. It wasn’t quite her style, but it was a pricey piece and she could always pawn it off again for actual cash. It was the closest he could come to saying thank you.

When Belle returned home that day, he could barely contain himself. He led her upstairs and made her close her eyes as he pulled down the ladder to the attic. He led her up, rung by rung, eyes closed, until she was standing in the middle of the room. He pulled aside the lone curtain on the small window and told her she could open her eyes.

She gasped and squeaked in delight. Her eyes shone with a joy he had yet to see. Her green dress billowed out as she spun round and round her own personal library.

“For me?” she asked breathlessly.

“All for you,” Gold said. Her smile could have lit up the town. She threw herself into his arms, kissing him passionately. Gold nearly fell into her armchair.

“Thank you,” she whispered, “Thank you so much.”

Gold smiled secretly into Belle’s hair. “Anytime dearie,” he whispered as his eyes closed.


End file.
